Avarice is defined as 'greed of gain, cupidity, the desire to get or have'. Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said : 'it is a sin directly against one's neighbour, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them...'
So if you renounce your worldly wealth, give it away and go and live simply, that must be a good thing. Or must it? Let’s consider the interesting case of Osama bin Laden.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, most of the world's Moslems were under the dominance of Europeans. Although Moslem nations asserted their independence after the second World War, Western style policies were pursued by many of their governments. Ordinary people distrusted them, feeling that they were at variance with their traditional way of life and the values of Islam. The discovery of oil made some individuals wealthy but the benefits did not trickle down to the peasants and manual workers. By the time Osama bin Laden grew up, resentment was simmering, fuelled by wide economic disparities and government repression. There was a widespread demand to root out what were seen as corrupt and decadent Western customs.

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh in 1957, to a Syrian mother and a Yemeni father who had ties with the Saudi royal family. By the time his father died, when Osama was 13, he had made a fortune from the construction business. This left Osama with plenty of money. According to a report in the Guardian he was worth $250m in 2001. He could have lived the life of a millionaire playboy. However, he had been brought up as a devout Wahabi Moslem and was drawn to religion. At school and university, he was a member of the Moslem brotherhood.

In 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in support of a communist government that was disliked by many people. Osama bin Laden responded by going to Pakistan, where he met Afghan rebel leaders resisting the occupation. Using his family fortune, he funnelled supplies to the mujahideen rebels. Eventually, he established a camp in Afghanistan, where he joined the volunteers fighting what he saw as a jihad (holy war). He called his group Al Qaeda, from the Arabic word for 'the base'. The war against the Soviets was backed by American dollars.

By the time the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, bin Laden had earned respect as a military commander, for his organisational skill, courage and ability to survive. On his return to Saudi Arabia, he expected to be treated as a hero. However, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Saudis turned down his offer of an army of mujahideen to defend the kingdom. Instead, they invited US troops onto their soil, an action bin Laden saw as a betrayal.

Bin Laden moved to Sudan in 1992 and spent five years there, establishing a new base for mujahideen operations in Khartoum. During this period, he became increasingly militant. He believed that only the restoration of Sharia law would put things right in the Moslem world and that other ideologies, including democracy, must be opposed. He preached the need for violent jihad to right what he saw as injustices against Moslems perpetrated by the West. Violently anti-Semitic, he demanded that the state of Israel should be destroyed and the US driven out of the Middle East. His views were particularly extreme as he included women, children and other civilians as legitimate targets of jihad. In 1998 he issued a famous fatwa, (religious ruling) amounting to a declaration of war against the US.

A few months later, bomb attacks were launched against US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people. Several of the suspects arrested for the attacks named bin Laden as the organiser, although he never claimed responsibility. When the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen in 2000, he was blamed again.

Then, in September 2001, came the devastating attacks against Washington and New York. Many people watched in horror as the World Trade Centre collapsed, after two passenger planes were flown into the towers. Al Qaeda was immediately suspected and, after some delay, bin Laden admitted responsibility.

He immediately became an international pariah. The US mounted a 'war on terror' to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which had refused to surrender him. Although the US offered a reward of $25 million for his capture, he managed to escape. For a while, there were reports that he was hiding in mountain caves in Tora Bora in Afghanistan, and later that he had moved to Wajiristan in Pakistan. There have since been rumours that he has died but these have not been substantiated.

Bin Laden’s value system differs markedly from that of many Westerners. He might not recognise the seven deadly sins, which are associated with the Catholic church. However, he would surely condemn sin in its wider sense as ‘transgression against divine law or morality”.

Although he is reported to have had four wives and as many as 26 children, he gave up the lavish lifestyle he could have enjoyed and used his fortune to support terrorism. He opposed what he saw as the avarice and decadence of the West but, in doing so, he became an instigator of mass murder.